Pastry Sugarwork Exam Entries

Standing on your feet for 5hrs straight, sweating and puffing, faced with a heater lamp, and even hotter melted sugar on your hands is no joke! And we have to do it twice!

Yesterday, we had a trial run. To discover where we were slow at, what could be improved, what worked, and what didn't.

This was my trial entry:

I didn't do any planning, I just made a lot of decorations and piece them up when time came. Chef didn't really like it. Although my handiwork was good, there were too many colors. Should keep to 2-3 colors, or even shades of 1-2 colors to make it more soothing to the eye. (Unlike chocolate where OTT seems to rule.) Important to give flow and movement to the showpiece. Many of the other students' were quite disastrous. 1 collapse (she didn't cook the sugar to the right temperature, and it started warping and breaking as she was piecing it up.) One was stuck on the marble table when she left it a little too long, and had to scrape it off with a paint scrapper.

Anyway, today, I think all of us improved tremendously!

There are 9 of us in our class SP1. 1 student threw her entry into the bin after grading. I didn't think it was so bad. There are another about 10, I think, in the other class SP2, but they took their exams on a different day, so I couldn't capture their entries here.

These 2 warrant special mention. Chef said they were excellent. I think so too!

And mine, and 2 others were very good. This was my entry.

I chose a color theme of green, white, and orange... come to think, it's very Irish!

I made a rough sketch in the morning, something softer, elegant, with clean lines, fit for a spring wedding. With various poured, pulled, blown sugar pieces. In time, maybe I can work in Murano.... fat hope!

I'm glad this is over now! No more sugarwork!!!! Well, maybe just a little more... I'm making some 'corals', and some caramel to dip my cherries for my cake entry on Thursday.

Sugarwork

Sugarwork - Boiling syrup to 165C and stop immediately by sinking the pot in a bed of ice water for only 2 secs. Pour unto a SILPAT, a few drops of coloring and you're ready to go! *wink*

Yes, and a pair of heat-resistant gloves of course!

Sugarwork has always been a reason why some do not want to complete Superior Pastry. It's one of our entries for exams, and they cannot take the heat! Those petite hands that were excellent in making cakes and pastries and piping, find themselves excessively burnt from the heat of syrup. These blobs of 'molten glass' are stretched, poured, pulled, blown to various showpieces that you can see here.

These below are chef's demonstrations.

These below are what I created from the practicals:

Because of the humidity of tropical Asia, the sugar pieces will start to become sticky quickly, and over the course of a day, start to melt. Even in air-conditioned rooms. The only help is a dehumidifier, but you can't turn that on all the time.

Monday, I'll have a 5 hrs session to put together what we've learnt so far to design a piece I'll have to replicate and present on Tuesday, to submit for exam.

Countdown for last Cuisine entries

Yes, it's all coming to an end soon, and this is my last week for Cuisine lessons. Next week are all exams, both Pastry (Sugar work and your own cake creation), and Cuisine (mise en place as well as the actual exam), not to mention written exams for both. On top of it, I was chosen to give a speech for the graduation. So I have to prepare a draft for chef. Busy busy busy.

I will update this entry with more dishes along the week.

Starters:

1) Tatin of endives with goat cheese, sweet sour jus

2) Crispy tart with tomato, langoustines and pistou

3) Taboule with fresh shrimp and vanilla oil

Main:

1) Beef Wellington with turned vegetables. Bouquetier-style means to fan out the turned vegetables in ordered alternatives for presentation. The beef is roasted, brought down to colder temperature, stuffed with foie gras mousse in the centre, wrapped in mushroom and crepe, and again in puff pastry, and baked till crispy. Note: the beef should still be à point, and not overcooked! Served with truffle sauce.

Over several dishes in Superior, they want to test how you can perceive the doneness of your food, when it is covered, in crust, in cabbage, etc. It's simple to roast or to pan-fry and know when to take them out. But when you have to cook the crust and yet not overcook (or undercook) your meat, is a different challenge!

This was what I served to Mel, Kev, Soogee and Kenneth who were visiting from SG.

2) Noisettes of venison with "grand veneur" sauce

3) Red mullet fillets with crispy potato scales

Desserts:

1) Figs roasted in rosemary, cinnamon mascarpone. You can also see some edible crystallised rose petals and borage flowers.

2) Caramelised coconut cake with roasted mini bananas

3) Soft macaroon, candied fennel ice cream, wild berry coulis. The flame-like toppings are fennel chips. Fennel sliced thinly and dried in oven to a crisp.

Pastry - Showpieces

In addition to Chocolate showpiece, others commonly seen are Pastillage and Marzipan. Pastillage is made from a crazy amount of icing sugar, some gelatin and cornflour. It is more tricky to work with than Marzipan, as the surface tends to dry out very quickly. Traditionally, different shapes are made in advance to dry out properly over 3-4 days, and assembled, and only then can you get something standing.

It is also used for wedding cakes common in the US or UK where its pastel colors and clay like modelling abilities allow you to create small decorating bows and ribbons and piece them altogether on a large pastel piece to cover the wedding cake.

In school, we only have 3 hrs, so we made hats. I made the pink one. The chef said oh, it's very feminine... and I said, yes, it's for a girl afterall, I'm not gonna wear it.

Compressed sugar are basically normal caster sugar colored and placed inside molds, not unlike making sand castles. After drying out, they're quite solid. What's useful is that you can make a towel of different colored 'sand' to use to prop up a showpiece.

Marzipan: at 33% almond paste. I made the farmer boy and the poodle. It's all freestyle, there're no molds or direction, it's only your imagination.

2nd last week of Superior Cusine

It's been almost 9 months since I'm in Bangkok, and coming to an end to my 3rd and last term in Le Cordon Bleu Dusit. Time flies... well, onto more photos!

Starters:

1) Line Caught Whiting fish (Fr: merlan de ligne) grilled with warm salad and condiments from Nice.

2) Lightly pan-fried Scallops with Scallop Parmentier and Carrot butter. Incidentally, this was our 2nd dish of the week to prepare for our practical. I guess the chef wanted us to work with live scallops. Yeah, live, not just in the shells, but their shells are clamped tight! We have to shuckle them as we would to live oyster, remove the 'beards' for the parmentier. They are very delicate and you have to be careful in handling them. I love scallops, as raw as possible!

3) Duck bavarois, mesclun salad and tomatoes confits. Bavarois is a term usually reserved for a type of cream based dessert mousse. However, over the years we have seen the lines of terms becoming blur between pastry and cusine, and I guess how this term was coined. It is in fact lightly cooked foie gras and magrets of ducks sifted and lightened with whipped cream and chilled to a paté consistency. Yummy! Served with smoked magret sliced thinly that taste like jamon.

Mains:

1) Thick Tuna steak with burgundy style garnishes and potatoes fondants.

It's your regular pan seared tuna, still rosé in the middle, but we added a bacon wrap. Served with red wine sauce, and potatoes slow-cooked in chix broth till melt in your mouth consistency.

2) Squab (Pigeon) wrapped in cabbage, legs stuffed, tartlets of wild mushroom.

3) Sole stuffed with mushrooms and glazed, with surprise crêpes parcels

We just finished with this dish today, it's quite interesting, the sole is split in carefully cut in the middle, fileted, but still attached to the body, and carefully, you have to remove the skeleton and keep the fish whole! So there is absolutely no bones at all when you cut into this dish.

Desserts:

1) French toasts (!) with berries and rhubarb compote.

I know traditionally we know french toasts as sandwich loaf dipped in sweetened beaten eggs and pan fried. Well, not the case in LCB! We make a crème anglaise to soak the bread, and sure it has to go with some healthy fruits!

2) Chocolate tart with marmelade filling. Marmelade is very easy to make, easier than jam. Prick some oranges, half submerged in water, boil till soft, take out, slice them (if you like, in traditional thick slices). Then cook them again peel, pith, and juice (except seeds) and all until a jam like consistency. Adjust to taste with sugar.

Chocolate sweet dough (pate sucree) half baked, fill with marmelade and cover with ganache lightened with whipped cream, and bake.

3) Cherries pan-fried in port wine and caramel ice cream

Mad about Chocolate

I know some people who loves chocolate so much, it drives them insane, they will have no problem choosing an ice-cream flavor at a parlour, but for me, chocolates are alright, but I'll like to listen to other suggestions first, namely something fruity, esp red fruits-raspberry, cherries, etc....

Anyway, I've learnt to respect chocolate a lot after this course, and I now believe there is a god of chocolate. Why I say this is because... tempering chocolate can be quite tricky. You have to melt (dark) couverture chocolate to 45-50C, bring down to 25-27C, and bring it up to 30-31C for use. It's not as simple as just heating up and waiting for it to cool down. You will take an hour or two for that, depending on the quantity. You have to use a bain marie, a very accurate thermometer, and a good marble top to spread and cool the choc down. This process is called tablage. You really have to give it time and a keen eye and respect what is happening and you react according to it. You don't do what you want with chocolate. Chocolate lets itself be done, it teaches you. Unfortunately, it's easy said than done. The perfect tempering at 30-31C can be very elusive, I myself, had a run-in and had to temper twice during one practical. (Maybe the cocoa god was punishing me for not prefering chocolate at other times.) There was a girl who had to temper 4 times in the same practical. *shudder* She was almost crying. She didn't have a lot of time to piece up her model.

Only then is it ready to be used for either pouring into molds, or shaping to the various showpieces you see in the photos here. And once it cools, it can solidify quite quickly, and if you're not careful and break some, pray that you have enough tempered chocolate to begin again. Otherwise, you will have to pick all your scraps, go through the whole roller coaster of temperatures again to temper them. So the next time you purchase a S$2-3/pc of gourmet choc and wonder why does it have to be so expensive.... well, it does!!!!! It's a lot of work!! And skills to make it a beautiful piece.

When chocolate is well-tempered, it gives that glossy shine, it breaks with a snap, and maintains hard in regular room temperature. The colours you see are edible coloring. These past week and half, we have been steadily building up our skills and techniques in handling chocolate, from basic spheres and hemispheres, blocks, to little hearts, and other shapes, and finally freestyle. We had to produce 2 show pieces for our practicals. Needless to say, as time ticks towards the H hour, everyone is frantic, hands are thick of choc and oily, the whole table is filled with choc stained spoons, spatulas, bowls.... and praying hard that the pieces you just stuck together doesn't come undone! All these with a clean set of uniform, of course!

I leave you here with some of my 'creations', LOL!

I filled the the rounds with apple caramel (with lotsa calvados) filling that burst in your mouth when you pop one into your mouth.

The main piece took 2 practicals to complete - the base is a chocolate box that we made out of a cake ring, and a lid of solid choc disc. You can use it to contain those yummy bite size chocolates.

This was what it looked like before I added more shapes and the final touch of the choc flower.

I know many people say it looks over the top, I agree too, lol! But then again, there're always people who shop at Versace...

Yes, everything (I mean, everything!!) is edible!!!